Programme Policy Officer (Food systems and Nutrition)

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

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ABOUT WFP

The World Food Programme is the worlds largest humanitarian organization saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict disasters and the impact of climate change.

At WFP people are at the heart of everything we do and the vision of the future WFP workforce is one of diverse committed skilled and high performing teams selected on merit operating in a healthy and inclusive work environment living WFPs values (Integrity Collaboration Commitment Humanity and Inclusion) and working with partners to save and change the lives of those WFP serves.

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WHY JOIN WFP

• WFP is a 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

• WFP offers a highly inclusive diverse and multicultural working environment.

• WFP invests in the personal & professional development of its employees through a range of training accreditation coaching mentorship and other programs as well as through internal mobility opportunities.

• A career path in WFP provides an exciting opportunity to work across the various country regional and global offices around the world and with passionate colleagues who work tirelessly to ensure that effective humanitarian assistance reaches millions of people across the globe.

• We offer an attractive compensation package (please refer to the Terms and Conditions section of this vacancy announcement).

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:
There is an ever-increasing global burden of all forms of malnutrition increased humanitarian needs and recurrence of shocks and stressors. Poor quality diets are creating a public health timebomb and undermining the economic prosperity of nations. Food systems today do not produce adequate or affordable nutritious foods that are essential for healthy diets and therefore contribute to multiple forms of malnutrition and as a result 2.8 billion people are currently unable to afford even the cheapest locally available healthy diets (SOFI 2024).

The Nutrition and Food Quality team of the Nutrition School Meals and Social Protection Service leads WFPs efforts towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal target 2.2: ending all forms of malnutrition by 2030. The goal of WFPs Nutrition Strategy 2024-2030 is to safeguard the nutrition of people in humanitarian crises and to support better access to healthy nutritious diets for those at greatest risk of malnutrition in a sustainable dignified and equitable manner. To achieve this goal WFP focuses on three pathways: 1. Actions to combat malnutrition in humanitarian crises; 2. Approaches to improve the diets of those most at risk; 3. Strengthening systems and enabling equitable access to healthy nutritious diets.

In support of the new strategy the Food Quality & Strategy team specifically addresses supply aspects of WFPs work on healthy diets including opportunities for local food solutions. The consultant supports the implementation and delivery of the pathways 2 and 3 of the new strategy to identify and develop scalable food solutions to improve access to affordable safe and healthy diets.

As outlined in WFPs Nutrition Strategy one of WFPs comparative advantages is to work across the food system and be able to influence demand for and supply of nutritious foods to address malnutrition among populations at greatest risk. This will include enhancing integration of a range of local food solutions from fortified and other nutritious foods through national platforms such as social protection mechanisms and developing local innovative nutritious food solutions that are accessible by populations at greatest risk of malnutrition.
Further the consultant will define and take forward a clear vision for this workstream and support the long-term transition required by new WHO guidelines for the management of acute malnutrition (Pathway 1). The consultant will engage closely in the priority countries where WFP and UNICEF are undertaking a transition plan to identify and strengthen the path toward local food solutions engaging and coordinating partners government other agencies such as FAO IFAD UNICEF private sectors etc.

The consultant will work as an integral part of the Food Quality & Strategy team while maintaining close working relations with other teams and colleagues within the Service and across WFP including supply chain food systems programme & policy as well as colleagues in RBs and COs. The consultant will report to the FQS team lead.

The responsibilities outlined below are a reformulation of tasks embedded in the previous TOR and thus remain within the existing scope of work. The responsibilities and deliverables are more explicitly aligned with the newly formulated WFP priorities as set out in the new WFP Strategy to improve diets and address malnutrition .

RESPONSIBILITIES:
1. Lead the development of WFP scalable (local) food solutions to improve access to affordable safe and healthy diets.
a) Lead the development of a narrative reflecting internal consensus on what constitutes healthier diets/healthy diet approach in relation to local food solutions in different WFP programmatic contexts (from nutritional adequacy to healthy diets) WFP role and contribution.
b) Establish and manage a database of local food solution initiatives in WFP CSPs/operations and countries.
c) Develop a short guide (or checklist) to local food solutions for WFP regional and country level use.
d) Coordinate the compilation and testing of a toolkit of analytical and scoping tools for use in (sub)national landscape analyses for the identification of relevant viable and affordable local food solutions for the management and prevention of acute malnutrition.
e) Facilitate (plan timeline DoL etc.) a cross-functional team including selected RBs and COs to undertake in-depth local food solutions analyses in 2-5 countries (report & roadmap) and a light analysis in 10-13 countries (roadmap & next steps); documenting lessons learned to support activities under b) in an iterative manner.
f) Contribute to learning documentation and sharing best and emerging practices in relation to local food solutions and HD in different contexts.

2. Enhance collaboration with international partners to support identification and development of local affordable safe and nutritious food solutions.
a) Facilitate a local food solutions initiative in collaboration with key partners including FAO IFAD UNICEF (First Food Initiative) and Micronutrient Forum and others develop joint narrative advocacy plan agree on a joint workplan around 4 key areas: 1) Global policy and advocacy 2) Data research and evidence 3) Country level engagement and coordination 4) Innovation.
b) Define a common framework for global and national engagement on local food solutions build and develop scoping tools and develop an action plan for joint assessment and development of local food solutions at country level; in particular with FAO and IFAD through a joint RBA initiative.
c) Enhance collaboration/partnership with foundations and private sector partners to mobilize financial and technical assistance towards the landscaping production and increased global supply of fortified foods and other nutritious products.

3. Enhance WFP internal cross-functional consultation and coordination for technical support to design and implement local foods solutions.
a) Revive and facilitate the WFP cross-functional Local Food Solution Task Force.
b) Support the integration of local food solutions in WFP projects and workstreams including (but not limited to):
Support/adapt flagship projects for the design of nutrition-sensitive assets and smallholder activities to increase the production of nutritious foods and improve nutritious value chains and market access where possible.
In close collaboration with the food system team support country level scoping capacity building and mentoring initiatives by providing technical and strategic guidance to RBs and COs on nutrition integration including design implementation and monitoring.
Engage supply management teams and systems related to the implementation of the Local and Regional Food Procurement Policy and WFPs food safety and quality assurance to inform corporate regional and country decisions & ways forward on viable integration of local food solutions in WFP operations.
Closely work with the SBCC specialist to align with demand generation and markets and retail focal point to improve supply for local food solutions and healthy diets.
c) Assist in the development of WFP plans programmes and projects including:
Contribute to ensure WFP programmes sufficiently support increased supply and availability of local food solutions for healthy diets and prevention of malnutrition.
Support writing of theories of changes and multi-sectoral proposals/grants for nutrition and healthy diets outcomes.
Conduct field missions to support the design and/or refining of interventions as appropriate with strong focus on supporting integration of local food solutions within food systems delivering healthy diets.
In collaboration with the MERLIN team develop and roll out M&E frameworks and metrics related to local food solutions and healthy diets.
4. Support nutrition capability enhancement to deliver on local food solution and healthy diets.
a) Organise webinars and communities of practice to improve knowledge about local food solutions (barriers bottlenecks myths opportunities policies and regulations)
b) Create/adapt learning modules on integration of local food solutions and healthy diets or other of relevance/needs

5. Perform other tasks as requested and required.

DELIVERABLES AT THE END OF THE CONTRACT:
1. Portfolio of knowledge products on local food solutions including vision guidance tools M&E framework database and documented evidence with lessons learned.
2. Reports and Roadmaps for selected countries that have undertaken the in-depth and light landscaping analyses.
3. Internal and external local food solutions task forces and their joint frameworks and roadmaps established and implemented.
4. RBA joint programme of work established on local food solutions.
5. Entry points and collaborative workstreams jointly defined with UNICEF under the First Foods Initiative including pilot interventions in priority countries with high prevalence of wasting.
6. Local food solutions and healthy diet strategic orientation and activity implementation integrated in regional and country plans and programmes as appropriate.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:
Education: An advanced degree in nutrition agriculture food security health or other area relevant to nutrition-sensitive programming.
Experience: At least 8 years programming experience relevant particularly to food-based approaches to nutrition and food systems strengthening (e.g. nutrition-sensitive agriculture school feeding social protection food supply chains food environment etc.)
Experience with different types of programmes (e.g. safety nets asset creation pro-smallholder programming Home Grown School Feeding). Desirable - related to nutrition and food security.
Experience working with national governments.
Research monitoring and evaluation experience required.
Experience working across the humanitarian-development nexus desirable.
Experience in gender-focused programming desirable.
Experience in capacity development desirable.

Knowledge & Skills: Knowledge of multi-sectoral drivers of malnutrition required.
Knowledge of global and country level nutrition architecture required.
Knowledge of scientific methods and ability to critically analyse emerging global evidence for robustness quality and relevance.
Ability to work independently.
Good interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to work in multicultural setting.
Excellent written and oral communication skills required.
Languages: Fluency in English spoken and written
Good working knowledge of French desirable

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